Then we scramble and try to correct, adding salt and cream and Sriracha, but by then it's too late. We succeed only in making soup that tastes more like salt or cream or Sriracha, the heart washed away. We eat it, but with defeat. It's a sad story. I shouldn't have told it.

Cheer up! It doesn't have to be that way. We needn't wait and wonder if our soup will taste of anything. We just need to follow Jane Grigson's lead, and commit from the start.

Her recipe below might not look like anything different from your average puréed soup, and perhaps it looks worse -- celery and dried dill weed? It sounds like it came from one of the more severe victory garden manuals. She could have at least sprung for a fresh herb, you may think, or a piece of bacon.

Rather than waiting till the end to discover what her soup needed, she fed it from the beginning.

The onions, celery, and potato will stew gently in that buttery goodness for 10 minutes, and it will drink up all their potential -- more than you knew they had. By the time you add stock and dill weed, the butter is a carrier and magnifier for everything that's good in those three humble vegetables.

Then you'll simmer a bit, blend, strain, and swirl in a little cream and more dill weed, if you're feeling flush. You've just made a perfectly elegant soup out of nothing.

If you're still not sure that celery can carry a soup -- maybe you're thinking of the can of cream of celery buried in your mother's tuna casserole -- this is the soup that will prove you wrong.

It tastes very much of celery, of course, but also strangely like the best homemade chicken noodle (without discernible chicken, or noodles). You thought that familiar flavor was all chicken -- but it might just be sweet celery and fat.

This is a thin soup, which might surprise you if you're not prepared. If you're in need of thick comfort, just add more potato or don't strain it. I preferred it thin -- the swishy broth makes it feel more refined, and its intensity all the more surprising; it also makes it easier to guzzle from a mug, alone.

Or, as Food52er muttersome, who sent me this recipe, wrote: "It would be just as perfect for serving as a first course at a sit-down dinner party as it is for slurping out of giant bowls (what we usually do)."

Since you won't be tweaking a thing last minute, you can get right to it.

Got a genius recipe to share -- from a classic cookbook, an online source, or anywhere, really? Please send it my way (and tell me what's so smart about it) at [email protected].

The Genius Recipes cookbook is here! (Well, almost.) The book is a mix of greatest hits from the column and unpublished new favorites -- all told, over 100 recipes that will change the way you think about cooking. It'll be on shelves in April, but you can pre-order your copy now.

I'm an ex-economist, ex-Californian who moved to New York to work in food media in 2007. Dodgy career choices aside, I can't help but apply the rational tendencies of my former life to things like: recipe tweaking, digging up obscure facts about pizza, and deciding how many pastries to put in my purse for "later."

We're having it for supper tonight. My husband's vegetarian, so the stock I used was chickpea broth to which I added a couple T's high quality (non-salty) bulk powder veg stock from our health food store. I've been making a variation on this for years, but never cooked the veg so gently, or added the butter at the beginning, which does work better. Lovely, thanks Kristen!

Hooray! This soup deserves all the praise and more. FYI I have made this soup with less butter and I think it still tastes amazing. I often double the soup and keep the amount of butter the same, and though it may not be as rich, it is delicious.

I teach "Healthy Foods" to middle school students, and have a "snow day" today, so I think I'll do little "research" and make this soup. What do you think of replacing the butter with olive oil? Maybe I'll try 3 T of each and see how it turns out...

Email arrived in my inbox and I knew what I was making for lunch. I adapted for my vegan family using Earth Balance 'butter' and adding more water instead of milk and cream at the end. Seriously delicious soup that was enjoyed by everyone home and over our house for a no-school, no-work snow day! Thanks!

Ohhhh, yum! If it ever gets cold and rainy in Los Angeles this season, this soup is number one on my list. Reference to Jane Grigson made me smile. Her Vegetable Book has been a key reference on my shelf for over 30 years. I knew nothing about her, and this article caused me to seek her out on the web! Thanks again, Food52!

Silky, elegant and a refined creamy green. (Sounds like drapery, doesn't it?) But it's thoroughly delicious, and I haven't yet added the spoonful of cream to the bottom of the bowl. This site provides wonderfully curated recipes. Thank you.

Hahaha. This is providence. Just received two bunches of celery in my delivery yesterday. Your recipe couldn't have come at a better time. I have not been able to find too many recipes out there that call for entire bunch.

The basic soup with onions, potatoes, butter and celery or leeks is one that I a making most often these days for my husband, who is taking many cancer drugs and painkillers . Spices and strong flavors just don't appeal to him anymore, but this simple soup does appeal to his appetite.